7 Quick Takes - How Lent Went

--1--

Happy Easter!  

I presume when most read this post, it will be Easter time.  Alleluia!  We made it! I don't know about you, but I'm licking a few emotional wounds from Lent, mostly caused my own failings. If the 40 days of Lent teaches me nothing else every year, it shows me just how weak I truly am.  All my best intentions, plans and Lenten resolutions just went out the window several times, and even Good Friday ended on a sour note when I lost my temper with my family (only an hour after going to confession, no less) thanks to my own anxieties.  It happens. But now it is Saturday morning as I write this, Holy Saturday.  Jesus is in the tomb and I find myself in an awkward and uncomfortable transition, waiting for the forgiveness that I don't think I entirely deserve. Maybe this is how the apostles felt on Good Friday night? Surely, they must have felt the heaviness that I am feeling today that comes from betraying Jesus by letting our own fears and anxieties take control. Yet as unworthy as they felt, Jesus loved them anyway, and once they recognized their failure and asked for his forgiveness, he used them for his greater glory, and they changed the world.  Maybe I didn't do so great at Lent but I tried.  I'll keep trying.  Satan may have had his way yesterday but he will not prevail.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.

--2--

So, other than the predictable spiritual trips and falls that I took during the past 40 days, there were a few highpoints.  Perhaps the greatest of these was our family trip to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama.  I'd always wanted to visit, and when debating where to go for our annual Spring Break trip, we settled on combining a trip to Chattanooga (to see the trains, of course, because #boymom) with my desire to make a one day pilgrimage somewhere for my birthday.  I just ended my 5th decade of life (whoa!), so I wanted to make it memorable.  After listening to three boys squabble in one backseat for five hours, trust me, it was memorable!  I still question why we never got a mini-van.  Yet, all that aside, the trip was worth it.  The weather was perfect, the Shrine had very few visitors that day, and we got to spend time in adoration, holy mass, doing outdoor stations, visiting the grotto, and just enjoying the beauty of the drive and the grounds.  We saw Fr. Miguel (from EWTN) and were blessed to see Mother Angelica's crypt.  For me, the whole day was my personal thank you to Jesus for being so merciful to me.  How could I possibly regret getting older when I know that every day is his gift to me?

Happy Birthday, Mother Angelica!

--3--

During Lent, we also celebrated St. Joseph's day.  Since my kids are gluten-free, I always try to come up with an alternative to the traditional pastries served on this day.  This year, I attempted a gluten-free puff pastry. It took a lot of butter and tasted good, but didn't puff up worth a hoot.  So, back to the books for a new recipe for next year.  We topped it off with some whipped coconut crème and the kids loved it, anyway.  Anyone have a gluten-free puff pastry recipe that really works?

--4--

March always means two things around here (besides Lent).  Wildflower walks and potato planting.  We were lucky enough to get some dry weather (after a foot of rain during February) long enough for the soil to dry out so that we could get our taters in the ground.  My family eats a LOT of potatoes! So, I wanted to grow a bunch.  We planted about 40 pounds of potatoes.  If all goes well, we should harvest at least twice that much, but it'll all come down to the weather and the potato bugs.  My boys are already excited about how much money they're going to earn this summer picking potato bugs off the plants.  Last year, they earned about $30.  I think I better lower my rate this summer!

--5--

The foot of rain from February did make for a fabulous wildflower display this past month.  It's been a long time since I've seen the wildflowers as gorgeous and prolific as they've been this spring.  Here are just a few photos I took from one of my favorite hiking trails. Every week from mid-March until mid- April, there's something new in bloom in our forest.  One week, the hepatica carpets the hillside, two weeks later, the mayapples have taken over.  Then, the leaves pop out on the trees and the whole show is over again until next year.

--6--

And speaking of shows, while we were in Chattanooga for our Spring Break, I got to take a little mom-break (because mama can only handle so many trains) and went to see the movie "Unplanned" while my men when to ride yet another train.  I wasn't sure what to expect from the film, but given what I'd read about it, my interest was peaked, so I seized the opportunity to go see it and I'm so glad I did.  It is one of those movies you don't forget easily.

I admit it did trigger some painful feelings related to my past miscarriages, but I found the film to be tastefully done and extremely respectful of those on both sides of the abortion issue. More than anything, it helped me realize just how important our pro-life witness is, whether it be large or small.  That point was driven home to me even more the following day when I was sitting in the car with my toddler, waiting for my husband and boys to come out of a take-out restaurant.  My windows were rolled down and I was reading a book (this book!). Suddenly, I heard some loud, raucous teen boys making comments about my vehicle's "Choose Life" license plate.  They were not nice comments.  When they noticed that I was sitting in the vehicle, they piped down, got in their car (which was parked next to mine) and took off, but not before shouting an obscenity out the window and spinning their tires. I just ignored them. As my husband said, they are young, they will learn.  Added to the irony of that encounter was the fact that I had taken this photo just two days before when we visited the Shrine. If this isn't a cultural war, I'm not sure what is.  Lord, help us.

--7--

So, I suppose you could say that Lent for me was very much a rollercoaster, just as most of my life has been.  Lots of little stuff, some big stuff, too much to contemplate, really.  I watched Notre Dame burn, mourned a cousin who died too young, rallied for Life, watched others mock it, and celebrated my own. I talked to Jesus on Holy Thursday about things heavy on my heart and heard only the worlds "Die with me," leaving me with only more questions.  That night, as a family, we remembered the Lord's last meal with our own version of a seder supper. We reflected upon the greatest gift Jesus gave to us in the Eucharist, and then we spent the next 24 hours failing at holiness. And in between it all, the potatoes grew, and the wildflowers bloomed, and we waited for Jesus to make all things new again, as he always does.

No Real Advice (Reflections on Infertility)

You think you’re over it, but then you’re not.


That, in a nutshell, is how I would describe life as an infertile woman.  I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, as Tom and I prepare to speak to a group of couples who will be attending an infertility retreat.  What can I possibly say that will give them hope?  Infertility is filled with days and days of feeling hopeless and abandoned, fearful and anxious.  Dare I tell them that even if they become a parent, either through a miracle baby, or by adoption or fostering, or all three, they may never really be over it?  For me, it is always there, lurking in the background, waiting for a trigger. In spite of having three children now, in spite of being pre-menopausal, I am coming to understand that my scars of infertility will last a lifetime.


Perhaps it is worse the longer you are childless.  I don’t know.  My primary infertility lasted almost nine years before I finally became a parent. That’s a helluva long time, especially because infertility is measured more by months than years.  Secondary infertility has continued for me since then.  Throw in three miscarriages, one successful pregnancy that was marred by a devastating fetal diagnosis, and six agonizing years of being in the waiting pool to adopt, and I suppose it’s not surprising that I still have a few triggers.


I found another one of those triggers this past week.  I was lying in a dark room, and the ultrasound technician was shaking a bottle of gel.  “This should be warm,” she said as she applied it.  I suppose that was meant to be comforting, but the words took me back to another day, another ultrasound.  It was an ultrasound to see if my baby, the one I’d been praying for for so long, my miracle, was going to be a boy or a girl.  We were so excited, so filled with joy and anticipation.  But the joy was quickly gone as we realized there was more to that ultrasound than just gender identification.  My baby had borderline ventriculomegaly.  It was to be the first of many ultrasounds that I would undergo in the next three months, each used for diagnostic purposes, each wrought with fear and concern over what would be found next.  All told, I’ve had dozens of ultrasounds now, and only a handful of them ever brought good news.  Too many of them revealed a weak baby, or a dead baby, or a very sick baby or a flawed body that couldn’t produce a baby.  


I tried to breathe through that ultrasound this past week. I glanced at the technician’s screen, and then at her face, and then back at the screen.  I know now that most of the techs are very good at not showing emotions, not disclosing anything before the doctor walks in.  And I prayed.  Please Lord, help me accept whatever the results may be.  It was over in just a few minutes, the technician left to show the results to the radiologist, and then returned almost as quickly.  This time, she smiled and said, “It looks like just a small cyst and nothing to worry about, but come back in 6 months and we’ll double check just to make sure.”


And just like that, it was over.  Everything was okay again. It wasn’t breast cancer.  Just a cyst.  A stupid, annoying, stop-your-heart cyst in the wrong place.   I texted my husband with the good news, and he replied, “I guess the rosary worked,” to which I replied, “Yeah, I guess.”

But I know better, and so does he.  The infertility road has taught us nothing, if not that prayer does not always give us the results we want.  It certainly isn’t magic yet so often, I still think of it that way.  When things work out, God is good.  When things go south, where is God?  I didn’t pray hard enough versus I prayed so hard.  This must not be part of God’s plan versus God has a plan.  None of the clichés satisfy.  None of them answer the greatest question that haunts mankind, the question of why things happen the way they do.


As I drove to the hospital that afternoon, I thought about all the scenarios that could play out if I didn’t get the good news that I was so desperately hoping for. None of them were pretty.  I told myself that I didn’t have any of the risk factors that seemed to come with breast cancer, so of course, the odds were that the news would be good.  But then I thought about my friend whose husband died of lung cancer, even though he’d never smoked.  And my friend who’d just lost her father to premature heart failure even though he’d always been a vegetarian and athletic.  I thought about my co-worker, who is a single mom and only few years younger than I, and who went through surgery for breast cancer last month. I thought about all the people who have been dealt a hand that just seems unfair.  Completely, unexplainably, unfair.  Infertility is like that.  It is one of the most unfair things a woman can go through, as she faces head-on a body the defies her very being and what she believes she has been created for.


And there’s the rub.  There’s the crux of it all.  What we have been created for is the delusion.  I like to think that I was created to be many things.  Daughter, sister, wife, mother, biologist, friend, advocate. I like to think that God will keep me around just a little longer because he has important work for me to do.  And maybe he will and does.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I am being delusional.  Maybe that is not why he created me.  Maybe I’m not here to do a job.  Maybe I’m here to do only one thing, and to hopefully do it well.  Maybe that one thing is to simply be faithful.

I don’t know exactly what I’ll say this week when I look face-to-face at other couples who are carrying a pain that I know so well.  Having been in their shoes, I know there’s not much I can say.  I avoided people in those days of primary infertility when they said with a big smile that they had kids.  I scorned people who tried to convince me that it was all part of God’s plan. I questioned people who said I just needed to pray harder.  Nobody could say much of anything to me during that time, and I didn’t want their advice.  I only wanted their empathy. I wanted their compassion. I wanted to know how I could possibly remain faithful to a God who I felt had abandoned me. I wanted to know why I had been created, because the reasons certainly didn’t seem obvious.


I don’t have cancer, at least not yet, and I am going to try to do as much as I can to try and prevent it. But someday, maybe tomorrow, maybe today, maybe years from now, I will once again face something that seems completely, unexplainably unfair.  And I will question God.  I will pray and my prayer will not be answered in the way I want.  Or perhaps it won’t be me this next time. Perhaps it will be my child, or my niece, or a dear friend, or even a stranger. Perhaps I will find myself standing beside someone who has all the same questions that I have.  I won’t have the answers.  Nobody does.  But I can tell them someone else went through the same thing.  He did nothing wrong, he was faithful, he prayed, he led a good life, and in the end, he was shamed, tortured, murdered.  His life taken from him against his will.  And at the time, it all seemed completely, unexplainably unfair, because it was.  


I’ll think about that during these upcoming days of Lent.  If nothing else, Lent reminds me that this world is cruel, and that life is mostly a trial, just as Jesus’ was.  I’ll be thinking of that at the infertility retreat.  The pain that those couples and I have experienced will always be there.  But so will He.  So will He.  We need only be faithful, and to remember that we are in good company.  Beyond that, I have no real advice.

7 Quick Takes - Blogiversary, Valentines, Birthdays

Linking up with Kelly this time for another set of Quick Takes here.  My life seems to be measured by Quick Takes these days.  Two weeks into February already?  Impossible.  Lot's going on, so let's get to it.

--1--

First things first.  We survived the polar vortex!  We didn't get any snow, and we didn't get to see the rhododendron curl up tight as a soda straw, which was a great disappointment to my boys, but sure didn't hurt my feelings any.  I'm so ready for springtime.  And sunshine.  We are drowning here in southern Kentucky with almost daily rain.  We've had 4 sunny days this month so far.  Yes, I'm keeping track.  One of which did happen to land on a Sunday, and the temperature got up to a whopping 65 so we went for a walk and soaked in as much sun as we could.  A day later, the rains returned but it was still warm.  Perfect weather for herping (yes, it's a thing), so off we went to find salamanders and frogs.  The boys loved that!  I didn't get any photos because it was raining too hard, but we found spotted salamanders, mountain chorus frogs, newts, spring peepers, wood frogs, and American toads!  This past week, our dog found a copperhead (snake) but luckily didn't get bitten, and the ticks are crawling around again.  So, I guess winter is pretty close to over here in the southeast wilderness.

Our sunny Sunday.

--2--

On February 11 (the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes), this blog turned 5 years old!  Woohoo! I even wrote a blog post to celebrate but then I didn't publish it.  Instead, I put it into the stack of draft posts that I've written in the past few months that are still being prayerfully discerned before I decide to share with the world.  So much in my life has changed in these past 5 years, not the least of which is I moved to another state and now have two boys instead of two toddlers plus a new toddler.  God must be laughing up there somewhere.  I never could've predicted all the twists and turns that have come these past 5 years, and I'm so glad I had this blog to document it.  If you are one of my readers, thank you so much for coming along on the ride with me.  I hope to keep it going!

--3--

We had a fun time celebrating Valentine's day this year.  Since St. Valentine's day fell on Ash Wednesday last year, we didn't really celebrate it, but we made up for it this year.  God did his part too, by sending us a beautiful red sky that morning. Unfortunately, that was the last of the sunshine that we'll be seeing for another week, but it was nice while it lasted.

--4--

One thing I did differently for Valentine's day this year was make a little collection of "love notes" for everyone in the family.  I saw this idea on the internet and thought it was pretty cool. At the first of February, I cut out 50 paper hearts.  Each day until Valentine's day, we would write something that we love about someone in the family on a heart and hang it up in our window.  It was so fun to sit and read all our little love notes each day, and by the time February 14 arrived, we had a window full of them.  I plan to take them down now, and turn them into little booklets for each family member to keep. I think this will be a new Valentine's day tradition for us now.

--5--

For Valentine's day dinner, Tom grilled us up some yummy steaks and I made a special dessert.  I rarely make desserts these days, mostly because sugar makes my kids go ape, but also because my sons are on very restricted diets.  Coming up with something that is gluten free, egg free, soy free, dairy free, and has no artificial flavors or colorings is a challenge!  As a result, I have mostly given up on baking, and they haven't had ice cream in years.  But, I really wanted to do something special for a Valentine's day dessert, so I searched the internet for vegan desserts and found some inspiration.  After a few modifications, I came up with this.  It's a frozen dessert made with chocolate chips (Enjoy Life brand), cashew crème, cranberry sorbet, and whipped coconut milk.   They absolutely loved it, and it warmed my heart to be able to give them a rare treat and see them so excited.  Learning to cook to accommodate their special diet needs has been one of my biggest challenges these past couple of years, and I hope to blog more about it soon.  It's been a lifestyle adjustment but so worth it.

--6--

And then, the next day, I had to bake a cake for our birthday boy!  I can't believe he is 8 now.  He's so amazing, and has grown up so much in the past year.  By far, the best part of this year has been re-connecting with his birthmother and for the first time ever, he talked to her on his birthday.  What a special moment that was! So many wounds are healing as a result of this relationship with her.  As I told a friend recently, our adoption story with him is now everything adoption should be.  I feel like we are living the perfect scenario.  Everyone just wants the best for our little guy and to do God's will in that.  With those kinds of attitudes, so much love can grow and God can do his work.  If you would like to read his adoption story, I blogged about it here.

--7--

There's one more birthday coming up, too.  Our little Karol Elizabeth will be remembered tomorrow. I think about my little ones living in heaven almost daily, and our boys know that they have siblings on the other side waiting for them.  It's somewhat consoling, I think, to know that we have immediate family in heaven praying for us, and to whom we can turn in difficult times.  We'll put a few candles on a cupcake tomorrow and sing Happy Birthday to Karol Elizabeth as we wrap up a week of two birthdays for two very special little souls.